Illinois education officials are proposing an increase of $350 million in funding for local school districts next year, an amount that falls short of expectations and deals an initial blow to Chicago Public Schools’ efforts to address an impending budget crisis.
The Illinois State Board of Education voted Wednesday to recommend the additional funding to Gov. J.B. Pritzker for his annual state budget expected to be revealed next month. It would match increases in six of the past seven years. CPS received $27 million of that new funding last year and expects a similar amount again.
The proposal does represent an improvement, but many advocates had pushed for even more education spending as federal pandemic relief funding expires for school districts in September. That’ll leave huge budget deficits in some cases; CPS is projected to face a $391 million hole next year. But those cliffs are approaching at the same time the state is expected to face its own budget woes.
Despite the setback, the mayor’s office, CPS, the Chicago Teachers Union and other community and fiscal groups are expected to continue attempts to persuade Springfield lawmakers when they debate these budgets in the spring.
CPS spokeswoman Mary Fergus said district officials are still reviewing the state’s proposal, “but the fact remains that, despite the efforts of many state, city and local school district leaders, the state has never been able to fully fund public school districts.” She said CPS will keep advocating for more state and federal education dollars.
The city’s frustration around education funding centers around Illinois’ so-called “evidence-based funding” formula.
Illinois created a new education funding system in 2017 that calculated each local district’s allotment based on students’ needs, taking into consideration the share of kids in each district who live in poverty, are unhoused, need bilingual support or special education services and more.
The new system found many districts across Illinois didn’t have nearly enough money to adequately serve their students. CPS gets about 30% of its money from the state, or about $2.5 billion. But state officials estimate the district only gets 80% of the funding it needs — about $1.1 billion less than necessary.
The law required officials to drastically increase education spending to fully fund all school districts by 2027. But since then, the state has been increasing that funding by only $350 million annually, an amount far below what’s needed to meet the deadline. Some had hoped that number would rise closer to $550 million this year. Projections estimate it’ll take until at least 2034 to fully fund the school districts with the most need at the current rate.
State officials noted this week that they’ve contributed $1.9 billion in new funding since the creation of the system seven years ago. But they’d need to commit an additional $819 million for each of the next three years to adequately fund the districts with the biggest gaps. And that’s difficult with the state projected to face an $891 million deficit next year.
CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said the need for more funding is even greater with a growing share of unhoused children and immigrant students who need language support.
“Good luck with the state making that case to Chicago legislators” that $350 million is enough, Davis Gates said.
“This idea that they are going to get out of this session without acknowledging the obvious about Chicago, I think that’s ridiculous,” she said.
CTU political director Kurt Hilgendorf said state officials can’t be proud of the funding system if they don’t fund it.
“A lot of people have taken credit, saying we have this great formula that addresses inequity,” he said. “It’s actually true based on the way in which it’s distributed. The problem is that nothing about the formula is equitable when it takes two decades right now at our current pace to get to funding parity.”
